


the country they call life

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6593824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a long road to becoming a person again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the country they call life

Natasha’s in Ukraine when a text comes through on her burner phone.

_Got time to talk to a bird and fossil?_

She sends back “USE YOUR OWN JOKES. :(” while considering the question. There’s nothing time-sensitive in motion at the moment; on the other hand, the guys were still looking for Barnes, the last she heard, and she’s not sure she wants to get involved.

 _They never bothered to thaw those out_ , Steve texts. She can imagine him holding his phone, carefully typing out every letter. _I’m a sad, jokeless man._

Natasha smiles.

THAT WE CAN AGREE ON, she says. TOMORROW? YOU CAN BUY ME DINNER. :)

———

Wilson looks a little tired, but he’s got a good game face and decent taste in wine; between that and the sight of Captain America ordering his food in stiff but passable Ukrainian, it’s one of the better dinners she’s had in at least a year.

“Okay,” she says eventually, because neither of them are bringing it up. “So you haven’t found him?”

Wilson exchanges a look with Steve before he says, “Actually, we’ve kind of made contact.”

Natasha raises her eyebrow and makes a show of glancing around the room.

“Well, we haven’t seen him,” Steve admits. “But he sent me a letter.”

“A letter.”

“And a phone. We’ve been texting.”

Natasha resists the urge to put her head in her hands. “It has occurred to you it might not be him, right?” she says instead. “Wilson, tell me at least one of you has some sense.”

“Hey, I’m not just here to look pretty,” he says. “But whoever’s on the other end knows an awful lot of stuff that’s not in history books.”

“Read a lot of those, have you?” Natasha says. And then, more seriously, “But he’s here now.”

“Who says he’s here now?” Steve says, cagey.

“Really, Rogers.”

He gives in gracefully. “He mentioned he was interested in a Hy—a facility around here. We thought maybe he could use the help.”

“It’s the closest he’s come to an invitation,” says Wilson.

Natasha digests that. “So you need me at your back in case you guys get your asses kicked.”

“Oh no, we didn’t – we weren’t asking,” Wilson says, a little awkward. “You’ve got things on your plate.”

“What, so you just came around for the cuisine and the view?”

“Nat,” Steve says. “We wanted to see you.”

He means that, Natasha thinks with a strange little jolt. Walking with eyes open into what is almost certainly a trap, and they wanted to stop by and have dinner with — with a friend.

She makes up her mind.

“Don’t have to ask,” she says. “I’m offering.”

———

They rendezvous with Barnes ten minutes out from the target. He gives her a long, hard look when he sees her.

“Thought Steve told you I was coming,” she says.

“He did,” he says. And then: “I shot you.”

“A lot of people do.” She shrugs. “Wasn’t permanent.”

Barnes stares at her a moment longer, his mouth twitching faintly, before he slides his gaze to Wilson.

“Hey, man,” Wilson says, light. “You know there are easier ways to keep in touch these days? Could set you up with Skype, five minutes, tops.”

Barnes doesn’t smile so much as show his teeth. “Not looking for easier.”

“Yeah,” Wilson sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

And then there’s Steve, looking at Barnes like he’s some kind of miracle. “Hey, Buck.”

Barnes hesitates. Says, carefully: “Rogers.”

Steve’s not a good enough actor to keep the kicked-puppy look entirely off his face; but Natasha thinks, maybe, it hurt Barnes just as much to say it.

———

The fight’s going better than Natasha had expected; the Hydra presence has thinned considerably since they’ve started, and Barnes hasn’t shown signs of turning on them so far.

“Nat, on your left,” Steve says, and she ducks under the blow and swings her pistol around in nearly the same instant. The man goes down neatly, hard enough that he’s likely to stay down; she slides her attention to the agent coming up behind him, half an ear to the chatter on the comms.

“Hey, Steve,” Wilson’s saying, almost conversational, “think we should tell that guy that’s not the way out?”

“Maybe when he comes back,” Steve says. And then, sharper: “That’s a self-destruct—”

Steve’s moving for Wilson; Natasha’s already hit the ground, nerves screaming _cover cover cover_ , and she has half a second to think maybe she won’t get out of this one alive–

—damn superheroes—

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve says, and an arm curls around her midriff.

“Sorry,” Barnes says in her ear, right before the whole place blows up.

———

Natasha comes to with a jacket draped over her torso and her leg in a splint.

“I would’ve set it,” Barnes says, sitting with his back to a tree trunk a few feet away. “But it’s different for you.”

She grits her teeth and sits up, takes stock. The leg’s definitely fractured, the curve of bone bulging visibly; but it hasn’t broken skin, and Barnes did his job well. She’s got scrapes all over, some that are still sluggishly bleeding, and her head is aching fiercely.

Still: alive.

She looks over at Barnes. He’s cradled his right arm in a loose sling and the hem of his shirt is ragged from where he’s torn off strips; as she watches, he turns his left hand over, palm out and open.

Natasha thinks about Barnes shrugging off his jacket with an injured arm; Barnes settling down in her line of sight, with empty hands.

What does it mean to disarm when your whole body is a weapon?

“How’re you feeling,” she croaks.

“Functional.”

Natasha waits.

Barnes hesitates. Says, wry: “Better than you.”

“Yeah, I bet.” She wiggles her toes, tries to bend her knee and hisses at the jolt of pain. “You got any idea where we are?”

“Factory’s that way,” Barnes says, nodding. “Get to higher ground, you can still see smoke. Maybe ten miles out.”

“Hey,” she says, “maybe we can still make it back in time for dinner.”

Barnes says, “I—” Stops.

“Well.” She shrugs, and begins to lever herself up. “Maybe I’ll make it back in time for breakfast.”

Barnes frowns at her, and comes over to lend a hand.

“You know you could leave,” she says, when she’s upright and as steady as she’s going to get. “I’m not gonna tell you to stay.”

Barnes cocks his head at her. “But you're going back,” he says, nearly a question.

Natasha thinks: Clint, making a different call; Steve, saying, easy, “we wanted to see you.”

She says, “I made a choice.”

———

Barnes keeps her company all the way to the edge of town. He lets her keep his jacket.

It’s far past dinnertime when she spots a pair of familiar wings in the sky. She waves in their direction, sees them turn sharply.

By the time Wilson lands, Barnes is long gone.

“ _Nat_ ,” Steve says. “We thought you were dead.”

She grins, a little crooked. “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not really trying,” Wilson shoots back. “We could give it a shot, if you want — after you get that leg checked out.”

———

The painkillers are beginning to kick in when Steve says, a little wistful, “So Bucky didn’t wanna stay.”

“Rogers,” Natasha tells him, wrangling the last of her consciousness. “Staying doesn’t mean a thing if you can’t leave.”

Steve looks at her for a long moment. Says, soft: “Thank you.”

 _Alive_ , Natasha thinks, _it’s a place to start_ , and slides into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> >   
>  God speaks to each of us as he makes us,   
>  then walks with us silently out of the night.
>> 
>> These are the words we dimly hear:
>> 
>> You, sent out beyond your recall,   
>  go to the limits of your longing.   
>  Embody me.
>> 
>> Flare up like a flame   
>  and make big shadows I can move in.
>> 
>> Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.   
>  Just keep going. No feeling is final.   
>  Don't let yourself lose me.
>> 
>> Nearby is the country they call life.   
>  You will know it by its seriousness.
>> 
>> Give me your hand.   
> 
> 
>   
> — Rainer Maria Rilke


End file.
